The Final Battle
by ColoursandBubbles
Summary: Harry and Voldemort have a quick fight to see, obviously, who will live and who will die. I might expand this chapter.
1. The Final Battle

The Final Battle

Lord Voldemort and Harry faced each other. No more horcruxes. No more hiding. No more running or searching. Just a quick battle. It was the battle Voldemort had been waiting for for the past 16 years. Harry knew how it was going to go. He knew well, and he knew it wasn't going to be fun, but that it had to happen. Just as he'd suspected, Voldemort reacted in a snap and fired the Avada Kedavra curse at him and he dropped with a grunt. He had committed suicide because that was the only way to kill Voldemort. The curse had hit him square in the chest, but because the last horcrux was inside him, the spell rebounded, shooting back and slamming into Voldemort's chest before the Dark Lord had the chance to react. Unlike Harry, who just grunted, Voldemort let out a hellish noise no creature on earth could hope to repeat and then collapsed. After that, silence reigned. Deafening silence. After Voldemort dropped, some part of Harry went off, into another dimension of time and space, and he found himself standing in a courtroom, one with a forbidding atmosphere, where the only people in immediate sight looked somber and even angry. They were dressed in very business-like clothes and occasionally spoke among one another, using very deliberate hand gestures and sometimes jabbing their quills at their parchment.


	2. Lord Voldemort's Judgement

Lord Voldemort's Judgement

After Voldemort dropped, some part of Harry went off, into another dimension of time and space, and he found himself standing in the middle of a large, round room, surrounded by what looked like a jury. All of them looked solemn. He was in a courtroom, and in the accused's chair sat Tom Riddle, looking about 20 years old. Harry gaped at him, but didn't get a chance to speak.

"Mr. Potter, please take the witness stand."

The judge had spoken, and Harry followed the order. He was surprised to find several other people in the same seats, all looking vaguely familiar.

"Court is in procession. All rise." The judge said. Harry glanced around him at the witnesses: all of them stood, so he did too. The judge seemed totally disinterested in his unprofessional manner. Once everybody was seated again, the judge continued.

"Would the accused please stand?" she asked. Riddle remained seated. His conceitedness surprised Harry. The looked annoyed by Riddle's refusal to cooperate. She took out her wand and used a spell to force him to stand.

"You will follow _my _rules in this courtroom, Mr. Riddle. Do you understand?" she asked. Riddle didn't answer. The judge didn't seem bothered by this; a failure to protest was just a silent form of approval.

"Mr. Riddle, you have been charged with a minimum of 16 definite counts of first degree murder, with various other charges for people we don't have evidence for but died indirectly because of you. You are also held responsible for the deaths caused by Nagini and the basilisk and any other tool you used to take lives."

Riddle made no response. He didn't appear to be very affected by her statement. The judge turned to the witness box.

"Mr. Potter? Your testimony?"

Harry stood up, unsure of what he was supposed to say.

"Um…Voldemort-"

"Mr. Riddle." The judge corrected him. "The name Voldemort means 'fly from death', and that name clearly doesn't apply at this point."

There was laughter among the jury. The judge gave a small smile at them. Harry started over, now beginning to relax due to the laughter.

"_Mr. Riddle_, then, killed my parents. I saw him kill my mom."

A few more witnesses were called up, but it seemed that most of the people Riddle had killed were alone, or with a group who also died. There were a dozen people in the witness box, including some muggles. The muggles seemed to know what was going on better than Harry, so they weren't squeamish. When the witnesses were done giving their accounts, the judge asked for any objections. It was then that Harry noticed a smaller panel of people on the other side of the room. The defence. They were mostly expressionless. Harry recognized a few death eaters. One of them stood up.

"You have no evidence of many of the people you mentioned as people Mr. Riddle allegedly killed. If there's no evidence, you can't charge him."

The judge shrugged.

"That's irrelevant. Mr. Potter was witness to one murder. That's all I need to sentence him. If Mr. Riddle deliberately, and with full knowledge and understanding murdered Lily Potter, and Harry Potter witnesses to that, then Mr. Riddle is to be sentenced. I don't need any more evidence; I was just accounting for the hundreds of people he _probably_ murdered. The death eater sat down, again, expressionless, and the judge leaned forward and placed her arms cross ways on the desk and looked straight ahead at Riddle.

"I trust you're familiar with Azkaban." She said. Riddle gave a barely perceptible nod.

"Are you familiar with Nabakza?"

Riddle's eyes twitched; he wasn't familiar. The judge gave a smile that wasn't happy: her lips curled up, but the skin on her cheeks didn't move. The smile didn't reach her eyes. It was the type of smile that said, "Fine, what has to be done has to be done, even though I wish it were otherwise."

"Mr. Riddle, Nabakza is like Azkaban in the way that it's a prison, but it's different in that it's not on earth. Azkaban was designed to drive the human inhabitants mad. It's highly effective, as you are well aware. Nabakza is designed to drive the spiritual inhabitants mad. Azkaban only reached the minds of the inhabitants. Nabakza reaches the very essence of you-your spirit. You literally lose yourself. It's not death. You simply transform into something worse-something you didn't start out. The cause of suffering is your knowledge that what is happening shoudn't be happening, and your total inability to change the situation. You will have no concept of what you are missing, but you will be very aware that you are missing something, and that will help to transform you because your agony is obviously suffering. It's difficult for me to adequately describe what will happen because I will never experience it, but I know it's a state of being that is designed to destroy spirits. That's where you're going because of the crimes you committed while on earth. The people you murdered lost their lives once, but many of them got those lives back. Although it's true that the families of those people suffered as a result of that, you will suffer more because you will lose your spirit, which is what makes you who you are. You lose everything. That's what happens when you try to gain everything; those who try to save their life will lose it, and those who lose it will gain it back. Now I'm just the judge,' she said, looking around the courtroom, 'I'm not involved with the actual destruction: I just sentence you. I won't see you ever again once you leave those doors. I have nothing more to say to you. Charged as guilty!"

Harry watched as some guards came in. They looked like ordinary people, but they didn't touch Riddle with their bodies. They used wands to handle him, and that was when his real expression showed. He stood up of his own accord and reached for his wand, which Harry was surprised to find he still had. The guards walked towards him, flicking their wands at him in silence, and Harry saw the effect: Riddle's wand exploded, his entire body went limp, and once the guards reached him, he was in a state where they could bring him out of the room on a metal stretcher one of them magically produced. Riddle was pushed out of the room and then the guards came back. They had placed the stretcher in a room and then locked the door and sealed it with magic. Only then was Riddle given a chance to control his own movements. There was a lot of commotion after that, both physical and verbal, and finally a nasty scraping sound followed. The guards stood outside the door with bland expressions, not caring a wit what horrors were happening inside the room. It was likely that one of the Nabakza dementors-creatures designed to do a whole lot more than drive inmates mad-had gotten its "hands" on Riddle and was having something of a scuffle with him. when the commotion finally ended, one of the guards slowly opened the door, prepared for more action, but got none. The room was littered with scratch marks, blast marks, an other battle scars from new inmates who had tried in vain to escape.


	3. Harry: After the Final Battle

Harry: After the Final Battle

One might think that after the final battle Harry took a break for himself and put Old Voldy right off his mind; most people would-but not Harry. He went into a coma for a few days after the battle, but when he woke up again in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, his mind returned immediately to Voldemort. The direct threat of Voldemort was gone, but Harry had seen the ministry fail time and time again to protect the wizarding world against him, and Harry was set on making sure that Voldemort stayed where he belonged-in Nabakza. Knowing how the ministry had failed in the past, Harry got to work, planning how Voldemort would be kept in his proper place. It was true that Nabakza was a place nobody was supposed to return from-even worse than Azkaban, and people (Sirius Black) had escaped from Azkaban, so Harry wasn't going to put anything past Voldemort, even while he was in the seemingly invincible Nabakza.

Harry first spoke to Rufus Scrimgeour, the minister of magic, about the issue. Scrimgeour couldn't deny the issue after what had happened, so he considered it behind his desk, in his office, with Harry sitting on the other side of the desk, a bandage wrapped around his head and stitches in one arm-and that was only what was visible.

"So…Mr. Potter' Scrimgeour began slowly, 'you discharged yourself from St. Mungo's without telling anyone where you were going, confusing the staff and sending the administration into chaos because now they have to worry about patients discharging themselves without warning…you demand to see me immediately even though my schedule is already overflowing, you insist on activating Aurors who haven't been in action in decades, and you expect me to take you seriously."

"Well, yeah, obviously. The war's not over, Scrimgeour. You want to think it is, don't you? But it's not. Yeah, Voldemort's in Nabakza. That doesn't mean he can't come back."

"_You-Know-Who,' _the minister emphasized, 'is gone. There is no need to continue denying what is plainly true. Procrastinating only makes things worse because you might forget and you stop taking it seriously-heck, you're already not taking it seriously _now_, so how do you expect to take it seriously in the next few days, weeks, and maybe even years. This ministry doesn't take Voldemort seriously because _you _ don't and they take orders from you. You have to start doing something right now. Start making plans. You think Voldemort will stay where he is? You think he's got no incentive to get out? If that's what you think, then you obviously don't know him very well. I've seen him, Scrimgeour. I've heard him and even touched him, and I know he's not the type to back don. He'll do anything to get back on top again. Anything, and if you sit there and do nothing to ensure that he stays where he is now, then you're opening the door for him to act and possibly come back."

The minister sat in his chair with a fixed expression on his face. Potter wasn't going to back down. Scrimgeour knew enough about his activity at Hogwarts to know that h wasn't going to back down, and if he was refused what he wanted, he'd be quite willing to break rules to get it. That left the minister with little choice but to work something out. He decided to cave-for the time being-and see what Potter had up his sleeve.

"What did you have in mind? I know you want aurors ready for battle, but if there's going to be another fight it will take more than just aurors to succeed."

"I think we're going to need more magic than people to fight that battle. People would be useful in direct combat, but I think if Voldemort comes back, it will be more of an indirect battle. I don't know where he'll come from, so it would be wise to put up some reinforcements all over the place-like alarms-so we know if he's trying to escape."

"You would be using spells that deal with death and life." The minister said. He wasn't happy about this. He didn't think the ministry should prepare for something they were uncertain would even happen.

"Yeah. Now there's certain residues left by people who are killed with the Avada Kadavera curse, so if we can find the place where Voldemort died, we can set up alarms there. People killed with that curse leave behind residue, and if that residue is strong enough, which it would be in Voldemort's case, it's possible for them to come back through the same place they left. Other hot spots would be the other places where people have been killed by that curse, probably his followers."

"I have a problem with this plan, 'the minister said, frowning.

"Yeah, what's that?" Harry challenged him.

"We have no guarantee that Voldemort is coming back, so why would we waste resources on something we don't know for certain is even going to happen?"

Harry stared hard at the minister. Then he leaned forward in his seat.

"If there is even the tiniest chance that Voldemort might think about considering returning, it is your responsibility to ensure to the best of your ability that we are as prepared as we can possibly be. Have there not been enough murders, betrayals, lies, cheaters, and the like to satisfy you? How many more people have to die before you get serious about doing something? Is my mother's life not enough for you? Are the sacrificed lives of many from the wizarding community not enough for you? Don't tell me it's not worth it when lives have been given for this. Life is not something to be taken lightly, minister. Maybe if you had an encounter with Voldemort you would understand that better. For now, I want to see action-immediately. If I don't, ell, you know me. I won't hesitate to take matters into my own hands, and I already have a small army from Hogwarts ready to help me."

With that, he got up and left the office, in search of the head of the Defence Department.

The minister sat back. Potter really did have his own schedule, and he'd force people to fit into it by giving them no other choice. He and his friends insisted that it was necessary to enforce such measures, and once again the minister found himself

confronted with a problem he knew would not go away until he caved to it. This problem wasn't the kind to sit around and disappear after a while; it would get a whole lot worse if he didn't do anything about it. It literally had a mind and schedule of its own. But the minister didn't like being told what to do, and if he took orders from Potter and nothing came of Voldemort, the entire ministry and especially himself would look very foolish, so he decided to wait to see what Potter would come up with.

After considering the issue for one last moment, the minister decided to inform the rest of the ministry of his newly acquired information to help make Potter think he was doing something. He smiled inwardly to himself. He was going to wait and see what the Potter boy could come up with, using his "small army from Hogwarts".


	4. Goal 1: Escape from Nabakza

Goal # 1: Escape from Nabakza

The winged creature dropped him onto a cold, hard, wet surface. The smell that met Riddle's nostrils was simply that of death. An atmosphere of despair, a stench of rotting bodies, and a knowledge that there was only one direction to go in: down. Riddle landed painfully on the surface. It was slimy. He raised one hand to see what the sliminess was. He found a nasty mixture of blood, human waste, and other vomit-inducing body fluids. There were bones lying around the place. His eyes couldn't adjust to the penetrating blackness, so he stumbled forward blindly, tripping over what turned out to be a corpse. Then the floor became a lot less solid. Riddle stepped carefully around the debris littering the floor and eventually stepped through an already-made hole. An episode of cursing and swearing followed before he managed to free his foot. He began sliding his feet along the floor, wary of debris, holes, and any other possible obstructions in his path. Then, to his surprise, someone spoke.

"I imagine you think you're going to stay here."

Riddle froze. Being unable to see left him at a disadvantage, and the voice was nearer than was comfortable. He argued with himself whether he should answer or not. Apparently the voice was unconcerned about his perspective because it lowed on as if he was a mute.

"You won't stay here…not you…no…I know you won't. You are too evil. In these parts, evil is measured in weight. The heavier you are, the more you weigh, and as you have become aware of, some people down here were so heavy they fell through the floor. Quite a normal occurrence. You feel the ground getting softer, weaker. It's actually not that weak, but it weakens in the presence of evil. Then you simply fall through the floor and down to the next level."

Riddle spoke without thinking.

"Next level? There's levels here?"

The voice laughed, a hideous sound that was obviously mocking his lack of knowledge.

"There are many levels. This is not the top, obviously, since you arrived here so evil that it wasn't worth putting you at the top since you'd just crash through the floor without a chance to even stand up, but here you got that chance. But I know you're still going to fall. It's just a matter of when."

"Where's my followers?" Riddle demanded.

The voice gave another hideous cackle.

"They've all deserted you. And so have your parents, but you won't be seeing either of them here, anyways, since they're both a few levels above us and have given up all hope of anything better, so they just stay in those conditions."

Riddle pushed forward and finally slipped in something slimy. He fell over backwards, but the fall was not broken by anything. He fell and kept falling until he landed with a sickening thud on another floor. This floor was bare – of slime and of debris, but there was another torment. Psychological torment. Voices filled his head. Screams and echoes and hisses and snarls. Accusations, mockery, ridicules, filthy jokes at his expense, incriminating questions, and finally a long list of every single bad thing he'd ever done, followed by a rant on who it hurt and what the consequences would be for him. Everything from breaking a shoelace to murder. Riddle couldn't force the voiced out of his lead. They were stubborn and refused to leave, voices without bodies, without hearts, without souls. They followed him around at he tried to walk away. They grew louder if he tried talking over them. He attempted to sleep, thinking they'd simply fade, but they raged on, enjoying the quiet environment where they could wreck havoc with no one stopping them. They tortured him without feeling, without a trace of empathy, without any emotion. They tortured him as if he had done them a great wrong and deserved the worst they could muster. They were terrible creatures – terrible voices. They seemed to be torturing for the sake of torturing, and had no intention of stopping. It seemed as if they were made of pain, and had only pain to give anyone they encountered. Riddle realized after what felt like an hour that he was sitting, rocking back and forth, hands covering his ears, but at the same time he felt something rising inside him. A terrible, unknown anger. He was being tormented by creatures he hadn't wronged. That infuriated him. He tried fighting against their accusations and found that their persistence simply angered him more. He began fighting them back, all of them at once, with his own raw hatred. They didn't back off, but this only consumed Riddle with more anger. They should back off. Without even realizing it, he was turning into one of them. Transforming into a sadistic horror designed only to torment those around him. And so he did. He tormented them back, calling them faceless nobodies, taunting them with false accusations, and eventually found their voices fading, sounding farther away. He believed he was finally making them go away.

He wasn't.

He was just sinking slowly into the ground until it broke under his weight and he fell into another chamber. This time a chamber that left him gasping for air. The chamber seemed to be filled with some kind of weight, but he felt around with one hand and couldn't feel anything in the air. He didn't realize that this chamber was the guilt chamber, a chamber designed to torment the inner core of creatures, meeting them at their core, tormenting them more horribly than the psychological torturers did. Riddle found himself on the floor under a massive weight. The chamber was not airless – Riddle's guilt was suffocating him. His lungs refused to work. Living was suddenly quite pointless. The emotional and psychological pain that ripped and tore at him left him numb to the pains of hunger searing through his gut.

While Azkaban had tortured its prisoners psychologically, Nabakza tortured its inhabitants with far worse than psychological – it slammed its occupants with a guilt that would destroy them, but Riddle's anger blocked out some of the guilt. He refused to feel guilty for actions he believed he was fully justified for. Blinded by his own pride, Riddle fell through the floor again, and this time ended up facing a throne. There was no one on it, so he went up to it and tried to sit in it, only to be met by a presence he could feel but not touch. The presence had no voice, and didn't require one to make its intentions known. It was Death, and it was the ultimate destroyer in Nabakza. Riddle stood there, in front of Death, and knew that he would have to make an exceptional case for himself in order to live.

"I can make you far more powerful than you are right now." He told Death.

_I know._

"I'm powerful right now, but if I go back to the wizarding world and grow even more powerful, I can come back here and make you more powerful."

Death considered. Allowing Riddle to go back to the wizarding world to destroy it and come back…that certainly would give him more power, and if he successfully destroyed that Potter boy, well, that was something he didn't want to miss.

_You will kill Harry Potter?_

"This time, yes. If you will give me destroying magic, I can kill the boy and absorb his magic, along with the magic of everybody else I kill. Once I get back here, I can give you that magic, and make you more powerful."

_And what do you get in return for that? _

Why was he doing it? What would Riddle gain?

"Life, because if I give you more power, I want to live in return. If I can get out of here and get you more power, I can do it again and again, in exchange for living."

Well, that sounded reasonable to Death. If Riddle could do it once, who was to say he couldn't do it again?

_Deal._


End file.
